Mom is participating, for the second year, in a cookie exchange. I, for the second year, have been enlisted as assistant baker. That's on the morning docket.

This afternoon, I hope to make it to the candy store. I have one of the breathtakingly beautiful, slip-trail decorated bowls that my sister makes and wish to have it filled with nuts and chocolate for my boss and his wife. Mmmm, the candy store, chocolate...

I also need to buy some 2US DPNs. I can't believe I don't have even a single set! I wanted to start some mittens last night -- I did start some mittens but they will soon be ripped. What in the world was I thinking? I've had some pain in my lower back the past few days and all I can say is that it must affect my knitting judgment, too.

The knitting has been pitiful, nothing worthy of a picture. To brighten things up around here, a pic of my own Christmas stocking. Obviously, I'd moved into the sampler stage by this time. I'm not really religious, but the vast majority of samplers have biblical verses -- I always kind of liked this one, anyway.

A few years ago, two of my sisters and I planned a shopping trip the weekend before Thanksgiving. The plan was to stay at a B&B near Minneapolis, and shop at the Mall of America. We found a very nice B&B in Stillwater, MN. Guess what? We never made it to the mall, we never even made it out of Stillwater -- we spent the entire weekend browsing and shopping in antique malls, kitchen/cooking stores, specialty clothing and accessories shops, gift shops, sporting goods stores (I had my brother's name that year).

It was an aligning of the stars or something. We all got a lot of shopping done, crossing items off our lists with every stop. Sometimes we'd browse through a shop and not really find anything until we were on the way out -- something would catch an eye and it turned out to be the mother-lode! On Saturday evening, as one store would close, we'd find that the next one on the block was open an hour later. I swear, it was like dominoes. Every time the grrs opened a gift that year, oooohing and aaaahing and asking where it came from, the answer was, "Stillwater." To this day, they think that Stillwater is a shopping mecca and would like to go there themselves one day.

That stocking is gorgeous. Five years ago, Joe's first Christmas, I made some quickie stockings from fabric panels with the intentions of knitting Fair Isle ones from Interweave Knits. Ya. We still have the ugly stockings up. I'm knitting the Fair Isle ones for next year! I figure if I knit one a quarter we'll be set.

This was the second audio book that I've "read," and I enjoyed it very much -- love a memoir read by the author. I've enjoyed Anthony Bourdain on TV and though I'm sure I'd have heard his voice in my head as I read the words, it was trul...